Archive: May, 2007
I read somewhere that the rule of thumb is one or two within a mile stretch, the neighborhood is in a decline; three or more, roll up your windows and lock your doors. Next time you’re driving through Crack (Mt.) Vernon, count how many you can find. Get the whole family involved, make a game of it. Then when you’re done with that, count all of the pawn shops and dollar stores. Now add it all up. Now divide by 11.6 (total square miles in the Mt. Vernon city limits). Come back and tell me what you get.
Bed and Breakfasts = Bad
Hair Salons (remember that one?) = Bad
Steakhouse/Package Liquor = Bad
I think you get the idea. Predatory lenders that charge an average of 300-400% interest, pawn shops and dollar stores everywhere you look? We’re sort of fine with those.
Have you ever driven through East St. Louis? No, I don’t mean passing it by on 64 on your way to St. Louis, I mean through it. I have. Know what they have lots of? Payday/Title Loan shops, dollar stores and pawn shops.
How about instead of getting our proverbial panties in a bunch over a bed and breakfast or a restaurant that wants to serve (*gasp*) alcohol, let’s focus our concern where it really belongs.
I know someone out there is reading this and is just itching to jump in and say I’m biased against poor people, I want to close down all the pawn shops and dollar stores, etc. Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but I’m not. My point is that we need to fight to improve our image. All of the bitching and general douchebaggery needs to stop. We all need to get our heads out of our collective asses and think. We also need to realize and accept that we can’t please everyone all the time. However, that is no reason for an entire city to remain stagnant. Shut up, get over it and let’s move on.
XOXO,
Emily
I am torn on legislation recognizing “hate crimes“. There are crimes, and not crimes. How can you define “hate crimes”?
If someone gets into a fight at a bar with someone else, it is disturbing the peace, assault, and so forth. Now, if the person you got into the fight with was homosexual, not white, or any other niche, you have committed a “hate crime“.
That example shows to me that the idea of “hate crime” is stupid. Just because something happens that is a crime and the victim or other party is calling themselves homosexual or african-american, you can be charged with a felony under these laws and face much harsher penalties than if they were white. Isn’t that reverse-racism (or sexism)?
The other side of the coin is when your local KKK chapter destroys a home because there are non-white people living in the house. In this case, the idiots did commit a crime that was directed at people simply due to their race. Those idiot criminals should be locked down and penalized to the maximum extent of the law. However, are special laws needed for that? Shouldn’t we just increase the penalties for whatever crime they committed and allow the judiciary the ability to use their sense to apply sentences as they should be?
Like I said, I’m torn. Racists and hate-filled people need to be dealt with harshly, but do we really need special laws to accomplish that end?
I would seriously like to thank all of you who are reading this blog. I know you’re out there, I can hear you breathing. (Actually, I can see your visits in the IP logs and hit counters.)
We are easily on pace to break the 2,000 unique-visitor mark this month, not including search engines. I have even heard from a few people in person how they like reading my blog. I’m getting a good feeling from all of this positive feedback, and I wanted to say thank you to you all.
RSS subscriptions are up, unique hits are up, repeat hits are up, viewed pages are up, and I’m hearing good feedback. My day is going pretty well. I would really appreciate if you would subscribe to the RSS feed if you repeat visit instead of using bookmarks. It isn’t that hard, and I know over 1/2 of you are using Firefox. Firefox has a built-in reader, just click on the radio icon on the right.
Thank you all again! Use the comments, talk to Dave, subscribe to the RSS feed, and have fun while you’re here!
